Living Without
by a-MAXiMINalist
Summary: Hera confronts Kanan with dire news, regarding a particular knot in the Force. This leads to clouded visions of themselves murmuring to a swaddled bundle, their slumbering infant's face swirled in a haze... that they learned to live without.
_A/N_

 _This was honestly a difficult premise to bring up._

 _I have encountered ideas of Kanan and Hera having a child and decided that this territory had to be explored with a less conventional outcome. The only fanfiction that ever came close to discussing it is "Turbulence" by Atlante on Archive of Our Own._

 _There are allusions to sexual actions but nothing explicit. I made sure to execute those aspects with tasteful restraint to stay within the acceptable bounds of the T-rating._

 _This is meant to have taken place during events of Season 2 with textual hints that indicate what episode this event is meant to occur after. Without further ado, I do not own any of the characters here. They are property of Lucasfilm and Disney._

* * *

 **Living Without**

She dismissed the tumbles in her belly as minor body glitches as ordinary as stomachaches. Lifelong experiences with shaky flights rendered her immune to nausea spells. The enhanced craving for fruit didn't tip her off, though it had been good-naturedly observed by Ezra.

Kanan's odd glances served as the red flags. His normally stoic expression was clouded with uncertainty, and the fact that he didn't approach her of suspicions, if one could call it that, was the most vexing part.

And then the belly-tumbles persisted, painlessly still yet more blatantly. It was benign, but benign could be the symptom of a foreboding problem. Could Kanan have detected an illness within her?

The actuality of the condition didn't turn out fatal, yet it rang blunt.

It started with a single word.

"Positive." The med-bot ran the tests three more times, so three more confirmations of "positive." It rendered her too numb, too stunned to extract tears of elation or terror, if she even felt any of those at every droning reiteration of "positive."

She instinctively notified Kanan of it. Or really, he finally found the courage to talk to her in her quarters, though it was about the business of a medical supply runs, a conversational diversion from some question in the back of his mind. Granted, he didn't need to say, "I sense something wrong." She knew him well enough to know when he was curious about her welfare.

So once he finished his quick report, she informed him about the "positive."

It stuck like a laser to his chest.

He could detect closely, the awareness that a clump of the Force stirred within Hera. He confessed he felt the stir for a past few weeks but underestimated its significance. Then he burrowed his hand into his slicken-tied hair, a relapse of a chronic childhood tic as he professed sheepishly, "Or maybe I knew, somehow, but didn't feel... think I could trust my own senses."

So immense was Hera's stress that the Force seem to ensnare Kanan's chest in a firm grip, as if their mutual strain were both wired together, a stony knot intertwined, as he felt each other's despair overlapping through chain of the Force.

His first thought upon the news was that he was a failure, a poor excuse of a surviving Jedi. The pregnancy served as a biting affirmation that he was going to pay some unspecified price for slipping pass the Jedi Code restrictions. Yes, he used to mock those anti-romance aspects of the Code in his Gorse days, but he had grown to where he wanted to reclaim his adherence to the Code, old as it was. He had outgrown his alcoholism and his flirtations of his Gorse days, but he succumbed to the occasional warmth of forbidden intimacy with Hera. What was the price?

She hadn't said anything. She was usually one to state the obvious, cut to the chase, or even openly vocalize her doubts once a problem is before them. But she was at a loss to say anything, snark any quip, her candid nature paralyzed.

If she was silent for long, it meant she was giving him breathing space to think over this, perhaps trusting he could conjure a "solution" to the doubt.

He paused, turned around toward the wall, because he didn't want her to misinterpret his astonished expression as disappointment. He hadn't worked out the exact nature of his emotions.

He traced back to the conception to the aftermath of one rescue mission, freeing a population of refugees from an Empire ship. It was one of their more grueling missions involving the usual, but amplified, danger: dodging barrages of lasers and resorting to leaving behind casualties in the urgency of warfare. Hera had fully recovered from the fight with the Mandalorians Protectors and had tossed herself into yet another tense piloting mission. When Kanan returned, hauling his battered body, he came to her cabin just to talk to exchange a few jokes to get through the day. They would remember wondering about the end of the War when they touched hands and they became wrapped up in each other and he remembered her lips kissing his scars, from the old, the backknife stab wound from Kaller, to the fresher battle cervices to sublimate the residue adrenaline of a close call. They had a lapse of mindfulness to skimp on contraceptive.

It was not their first time. It had been hard then to really tell if her flirtation was sincere or coy, humoring him with her "luvs" or "dears" to get him to do what she wanted him to do. Yet, something had blossomed. Years before Ezra had wandered into their lives, after a rough mission, he had fallen into her arms, ready, not for an embrace, but for someone to catch him. She felt like falling back into his arms too. When they woke up, she asked him if he regret it. He confessed he didn't, even if he knew that he shouldn't have done it. But their emotions matured into a affectionate professional partnership when they ran the Ghost. He was a Jedi and she a pilot and fighter, devout to their priorities, and slipping into each other once in a while.

Was this why the Jedi forbid attachment, sexual relations included? Was it to avert those inconvenient extremities of emotions? There had been history of emotional collateral damage, of Jedi tempted to the Dark side out of passion. The Jedi were permitted to forge friendships and have pleasures, but it could only go so far-no _attachments_. They could afford some slip-ups perhaps, Jedi weren't infallible, Master Depa would suggest to him. Some veered in the threshold of the Dark and Light Side, rehabilitated under the Council supervision.

 _I could still wield the lightsaber and the Force for good. I'll always be an warrior and agent of the Light Side. The Universe will not fall apart._

The Old Order may have collapsed into rubble, but he considered it crucial that the Code lived on. He recounted exceptions like Master Ki-Adi-Mundi, permitted to marry and sire children due to the endangered status of species. He summoned his childhood memories to decrypt the old intrigued gossip among the fellow Younglings, "How does a Master like Mundi not get attached if got wives and kids?" That was an unfair parallel, for that exception wouldn't reasonably apply to him. He would have been disciplined for such insubordination.

But if there was some Jedi-alleged psychological burden in having a child, then he'll shoulder the responsibility. He may have adopted a looser interpretation of the Code in his drifter days-he found it easy to cast off the "forbidden romance" tenet-but he was at this age where he must grow out of his relaxed standards and reinforce himself back into the Old Code. At least, that what's he told himself.

He found the courage to look at her. But her head was down, averting eye contact. He squatted down in a vain attempt to meet eyes.

He finally formulated his finest reply with a wry grin in order to charm a smile from her. "Hey, you raised Ezra, Sabine, and even Zeb, I think you'll make an exceptional mother as you are a pilot and leader." He deliberately left out the aspect of him being a father. Him? A father? Not so sure. But he had doubts. Parenthood wasn't something one _tried,_ but did.

 _I have raised Ezra after_ all. But that was a teacher-student relationship. There was nothing in the teachings that taught them about fathering-not "fathering" in sense of being a mentor to Ezra, but the sense of _fathering a bloodline_ -perhaps Ki-Adi-Mundi had to decipher the balance between his fatherhood instincts and duties out for himself. _I could be a father too. I can find a balance between being a Jedi of Light and a father._

He didn't turn around when she spoke. The Force felt disturbed, muffling... like an unwelcomed embrace.

Something constricted within her heart, like the tightening of a cord, the fear welling within her, as if she was afraid he would dare say those affectionate compliments.

"Kanan, luv," A tense pause. "I believe we... I... _shouldn't_ have the baby."

These were words that never occurred to him to fear. He had been too busy fearing the afterbirth of hazards. Of Hera weakened by childbirth, the possibility of an unhealthy infant, losing the child to the bloodthirsty Inquisitors, or entrusting the baby in some safer location in the arms of strangers and worrying from the distant.

Her declaration compelled him to implore abruptly,"Hera, but the baby, _our_ child, he or she will be strong with the Force. If you decide to-... you know well that this child would be a hope, one more hope that the galaxy could need." He saw himself teaching the child to swing the lightsaber, if he felt the world's current state of affairs could oblige his child to be a disciple of the Force.

Hera was thinking, Kanan had a point on the grand scheme. But could he be convincing her out of personal feelings?

"Kanan, why are trying to talk me out of this?"

He softened, for he did not wish for her to feel accused. "Well, I-I... it's true that _I_ do _want_ the child to be born" Yoda might lecture this desire as a Jedi sin; He could hear Yoda philosophizing him on attachment. He pictured himself surrounded by the disapproving glares of the Council and Master Billaba shaking her head.

But this sin mingled with reason. "But I do _feel_ the galaxy _needs_ one more new hope." Was he wielding a rationalization to further his own wants? He wasn't so sure.

Hera thought, even hope could be too fragile and a magnet for undeserved catastrophe. The Inquisitors snatching Force-sensitive children to rear them into the Dark Side. Where would they place the child? She knew the Rebellion and Ahsoka would scout for viable non-Empire dominated locations. Would they entrust the child in the arms of strangers on a safe planet-the "hiding spots," as Tano coined them-for an unknown amount of days, months, years? And what if the Empire strikes those safe areas?

"There are other modes of hope, Kanan." Hope can give more to lose than to gain. If they tacked all their hopes on a child, wouldn't it be an unfair burden for said child? She recalled her times in the underground, where the announcement of a pregnancy was swamped with warm reception by the community, but she had seen the painful forced smiles on expectant mothers to staunch their panic and weariness, clutching their swollen bellies with insecurity and wondering just how long they can protect their children from the shower of gunfire.

Kanan slumped down on the wall. He lowered his voice, so Hera would know there was zero frustration. "Hera, understand that I do want the child." He had a flicker of a vision, both pure and clouded: of him murmuring tenderly to a tiny swaddled bundle, its face unseen. "Especially with you."

He bit his lips to jolt him to his senses and directed his gaze to the cold metal of the ceiling. "But... it's your womb, I ca-... I shouldn't stand in your way."

But the image of him and the bundle did not dissipate. He consciously willed the dream to exist, enforcing what he wanted to see. But he forced his gaze from the ceiling to her despondency. Dreaming that could fatally dictate his decisions or even dishonor her agency.

When he was able to meet eyes with her, she muttered in her shaky businesslike tone, as if she was deciding to make a difficult trade-off. "I want to live in this world where I can bring this child in the world with ease. But no, not with this War we're still slaving over."

 _Slaving over._ Her choice of words sent a chill up Kanan's spine. Yes, he always detected the swirling distress in her whenever they were in the path of Empire gunfire, but she had those stress under restraint and focus. "Do you feel like this War gives you no choice? "No choice" is the only option?"

She didn't answer. All she knew was that she had to keep piloting. She knew herself most likely capable of piloting even with the condition of pregnancy. But she couldn't leave the others to substitute for her piloting and leadership should a maternity leave end up being mandatory. There weren't much capable substitute for her position. They fought to accelerate the end of the War and trusted that victory will default with the Light Side, but, as of now, they achieved little progressions without a precise forecast of the War's end.

She could visualize herself singing her mother's Ryloth lullaby to the blurry face child slumbering in her arms. But such lullabies wouldn't be an affirmation of security, but a need for consolation, to soothe herself and child and temporarily drown out the warfare in the skies and grounds. She remembered her mother singing, letting her child know that she might not come back.

They couldn't afford to invest in the uncertainty of a new fragility. They needed to default to tragic certainty of what would never be.

"Kanan, I am going to have _it_ done, and..." She was about to add, and _it would be over_ , but that would be a fib. The sadness wouldn't end. She knew she will look back. It would be another chapter in her life, a chapter with its ending, but a chapter haunting her memory.

He turned back to the wall. His next gesture was a steady nod.

She considered it a relief he did not inquire _when_. Because she was at a lost for when. All she knew was that she would visit the medical unit in Phoenix Squardon to meet a med-bot sworn to confidentiality. She never requested Kanan to be in the room with her.

* * *

Her medical quarters of Phoenix Squadron felt colder than usual. It never yielded this amount of chill where she was quartered there, recuperating from her injuries from the skirmish with the Mandalorian Protectors. It would remind her of the delicacy of the body.

Due to the shortage of anesthesia, Hera verbally told the med-Bot that it wouldn't be necessary to conserve medical needs for the others.

The med-bot assured her that it would take place in the span of five to ten minutes.

* * *

Kanan was rehearsing lightsaber combat when it happened, counting on the induced flood of adrenaline to numb him his other senses with the Force. He had asked Ezra to leave him to train alone. He didn't want to break down and give anything away, any hint. He knew Ezra would sense his trouble and ask questions. And then he might be tempted to give Ezra answers that should have been reserved to him and Hera. Or, if he didn't break, he would leave Erza with loose threads of unanswered questions.

He could discern a sever in the Force, like a knot being gingerly uncoiled, and he knew it was connected to him because his pulse began to wound up and accelerate.

He wove his saber ferociously to muffle the presence, the knowing of what was happening. The whirl in his head did not temper down. He was built to withstand extraneous training, but this was weighing him down as if he was about to collapse through the floor.

He heard Hera's lulling whimpers through the reverberation of the Force.

He extinguished his lightsaber and wiped the sweat from his face. He wasn't there for her.

He collapsed to his knees, not just for the pre-life forming and expelled within Hera, but for Hera. He wasn't brave enough to be at her bedside. He was weak, letting the emotions swallow his sensibilities.

* * *

It finalized in a severe dulling abdomen cramp.

She had done her research in order to staunch the emotional aftershocks. She knew of stories from others who undergone the same procedures, due to war or poverty. Some who regretted ("Oh, I do wish I didn't"). Some who moved on ("I think about it, but I'm fine").

* * *

He lived through many disturbances in the Force. But was this to be called a "disturbance" even in minuscule terms?

He curled himself into a meditative pose and shut his eyes.

The Force was everywhere, an omniscient entity interlaced into everything, organic life especially. When life perishes, they become one with the Force. But what happened to the partially-formed life of a fetus was seldom spoken about. Could it have been a subject in the ashen-remains of the Jedi archives? An obscure one.

The matter wavered, simmering down.

He had endured his share of sharp and gradual demises in the range of the Force. He had witnessed his Master's death and processed her collapse, when she abruptly ascended to the living Force. He had been engulfed by the tidal waves of the Force whenever body counts of his fellow Clone friends piled up. Those immediate deaths were dull seismic explosions. He had seen clone comrades succumbed to injuries over the course of days. Their deaths were dull quieter explosions, sometimes with a tint of tranquility because their corporal suffering had ended.

But this "waver" was a foreign energy that didn't exactly resemble slow deaths, although he could say it was closer to that spectrum.

This waver of the Force fit the description of _neutralizing_. Was it life dying? Hard to say. There was the feeling of it relaxing, restructuring, slumping down, dispersing, spreading thin, descending into peace, peace not without pain, and things reverted to an equilibrium of trembling certainty.

* * *

Recovery was an estimated three days. As far as the rest of the crew knew, she was crippled from abdomen pain and no further elaboration. Their missions continued, including a recent restocking of medical supplies for the Squadron.

But Sabine might have suspected or known, so he assumed. She spent the most time with Hera privately. It was possible Hera might have confided in her and entrusted her secret with Sabine. Sabine would give Kanan sad glances, maybe because she knew the deeper extent of situation. Or maybe because she pitied Kanan's feelings for Hera and knew nothing else.

Ezra did sense the trouble in him after all. It was outside Hera's door when his student inquired, "Kanan, asking how she's doing without seeing her isn't really going to cut it."

The boy further probed, "There's something you _and_ Hera are not telling me" deducing that there was some specific matter between the both of them. Did Ezra ever sensed the stir within Hera? Had the kid achieved that level of Force-sharpness yet? Hera needed her privacy respected, that was all he told his young student. Kanan suspected perhaps one day, he could confide in Ezra another day, another year.

It was past the sleep time aboard the Squadron, Ezra, Zeb, and Sabine were supervising the cockpit of the Ghost.

He stole his way into Hera's room, asked the med-bot for privacy.

She was humming a tune, facing the wall. And because his entrance didn't seem to stall or interrupt her humming, he nearly recoiled outside, assuming that she was too much in a daze to know his presence and in no wanting to see him.

But the beckoning of her hand was a sign that she knew he was here, even without looking at him.

There was enough space for him to lounge himself next to her. He held her, not in the closeness like their rare sporadic nights but in a warm bundle of chaste intimacy.

He could catch the few lyrics in Twi'leki-"hope, ardour, fire." He could guess this was her mother's lullaby in her underground days on Ryloth.

Her speech slurred but she was conscious enough to have a conversation while stroking his hair. He asked her how she felt. She didn't answer, so he didn't probe further. He left her doubts in peace. He simply told her that the restocking of medical supply was one victory for the Rebellion, sensing that they were one step closer to a larger victory and maybe the end of the War.

They always fought in the War with an agreement of the conditions. Hera knew Kanan's lightsaber abilities might faulter and be the leeway for a fatal shot. Kanan knew she might never fly back in her ship. When Hera flied away to farther missions, there was never a guarantee she would be on time... or even come back. They had conditioned themselves to the professionality of creating emotional space to leave behind, to live without. He always empathized with Hera's reluctant resolve to leave him at the mercy of the Grand Inquisitor for the remaining crew's safety, but her pragmatic choice did not stop the flow of her apologies ("Ezra had to prove me wrong, I wish I decided to go back for you") once she was alone with Kanan in the aftermath. He assured her, that she made a logical decision and his ultimate successful rescue didn't prove her caution wrong, but rather, reinforced that plans can change and that there was more than one answer to every dilemma.

It was miracle of the Force they were there to even touch each other. That they survived so that their lives could go on.

"If we outlive this War, maybe, just maybe, someday," she murmured as her fingers wound around his.

"Someday." He echoed back.

"Maybe."

It might never be, it might be. That was hope, balanced.


End file.
